I have never been very good at being still. I fidget all the time, my hands or feet or legs are always moving…it’s honestly annoying and when I try to calm down, sit still, take deep breaths it feels really good…it just never lasts. My mind is like that too, constantly churning, turning over ideas, mulling over words spoken or actions taking, dreaming….my goodness I am a dreamer…my mind obsesses and its exhausting. As a Christian I have never been patient, I have always wanted to know exactly what the Lord wanted for me and if He wasn’t moving quick enough…well He probably didn’t want it for me. I realize now that He was trying to get me to slow down, to focus on His will for my life and not wanting me to fit my life to what I ‘thought’ His will for me was or more like what I wanted His will for me to be. It’s a bad habit…one I ruined relationships and friendships over. One that I was cautioned against and my retort was usually: “you don’t know what you are talking about. This is how God wants me to be, He may want YOU to move slow and wait and listen but He talks to ME and tells me I am fine.” I was so stubborn…still am but I like to think I have matured in my stubbornness, that I have evolved if you will as one who may not initially appear to be listening but then goes and ponders, constantly thinks on the wisdom that has just been bestowed on my ears. I don’t always follow what others think I should do, or what the norm maybe appears to be…but in these last couple years, this last year especially, I have found that rest, that peace, that relying on and in the arms of my Savior that I was always rushing before. I don’t have laziness…I couldn’t just wait to see what the next step was for income with three boys, hoping something would fall into my lap…but I had to trust that doors would be open if I put myself out there…and they have been. Doors have been open and shut…it’s been clear, direct and in-assumable what the right paths were. I rested and wrestled so long before I left the house that used to be home that when I did leave, although I was shattered, I knew it was the right decision. My actions afterwards for the next 6 weeks were not…but the initial act of leaving was…I was at peace with the leaving, I just wasn’t at peace with what followed the next few months. It wasn’t so much that I longed for MY marriage…it was that I longed for restoration, for a relationship that was healthy, for a companion and for a friend. Mostly though I longed for restoration. While I didn’t find it in my marriage I did find it in the peace that came with relying on the Lord. I found a new, raw, honest and humbling relationship with my savior…the one who had redeemed me many years ago but was waiting for me to find a quiet minute, to find time for Him, to find out that I could be broken and rely on HIM. One of my favorite verses, ever since I was a little girl is Isaiah 40:30-31

“Even youth grow tired and weary, and young men (or women) stumble and fall: But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

This last year, these last two years…more growing has happened in my life than I could have anticipated for myself. It is still a daily struggle to slow myself, to immerse myself in the word, to pray, to find gratitude and direction. Others may not agree with or understand my life, my choices and my struggles…I am learning to have peace with that, to find comfort in the fact that my salvation does not depend on their approval but it has already been paid for, bought with the blood of the one who says “come to me and rest in My arms, let Me cover you and take care of you. ” This morning our daily devotion of a family of four touched on this very topic and I was encouraged that I have the opportunity to pray with my sons, to read scripture, to turn our focus to a place where we don’t have to be perfect, or okay, or have things figured out because we have someone willing to walk with us and to hold us. We are all healing, we are all doing better, and we will be stronger not because of our own strength but because of the one who gives EVERLASTING strength.